In the fourth quarter, the bank earned 63.3m euros in net profit or almost twice the third-quarter result. "Figures are impressive indeed," admitted the bank’s CEO Priit Perens. Perens said that record profits came from the decline in bad loan provisions that last year were EUR 40m lower than in 2011.

„Loans that we were not hoping to recover performed better than we expected,” said Perens, adding that the bank has recovered about 25% of its total initial provision of EUR 320m. The bank says that although its customers have become more active economically, the bank’s income from service fees remained at the 2011 level.

Perens said that he cannot rule out that Swedbank will adjust its structure of banking fees. „I am not saying that it will be made next month, but I cannot rule out it in the long term,” said Perens without going into further detail. Nordea Eesti reported that it ended last year with a profit of EUR 48m which is about 20% more than a year earlier.

Comparing the results of both banks, Swedbank continues to lose market share in loans and deposits, while Nordea has strengthened its position.

TALLINN – Estonia's national carrier Estonian Air has sent a plan to the government
on its flight schedule till September 28, containing ten destinations instead of
the nine mentioned earlier, Eesti Paevaleht writes.

Estonian Air's overhaul plan will be reviewed by the Cabinet on Thursday and
a decision on how the company will move forward is expected to be made in early
February.

Supervisory board member Erki Urva said it was too early to disclose the specifics
of the draft plan such as spending figures, Postimees reported.

The government decided in December to lend Estonian Air 8.3 million euros, which
the minister of economic affairs, Juhan Parts, has said would save the company from
bankruptcy until March.

The European Commission is currently reviewing the Estonian government's request
to bail out the airline. "The new plan focuses on balancing the company and servicing a route network
consisting of ten strong destinations," said Estonian Air's manager Jan Palmer.

Earlier, nine destinations have been mentioned. Now the summer flight plan includes
Stockholm, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, Oslo, Moscow, St Petersburg, Kiev, Vilnius
and Trondheim. Considering the summer tourism season Estonian Air flies to Nice,
in March school break and summer to Paris. Flights to Paris and Helsinki take place
till the end of January and flights to Vienna till the end of March.

Palmer said that talks are under way to operate other companies' European routes
with Estonian Air planes. "Restructuring proceeds according to plan but a lot is
yet to be done," said Palmer.

Estonia has been ranked by the Paris based NGO since 2003, reaching number three in both 2007 and 2011, while the low came in 2003, when Estonia occupied the 12th position.

The publisher offered no explanation to Estonia's fall.

But director of the Estonian Newspaper Association Mart Raudsaar told Postimees that there are three likely main reasons for the fall. Legislation against hate crimes has been made more strict and it might now be used to quell the media, he said.

“A second reason was that, last year, a number of politicians spoke up on the use of language by journalists, especially those employed by Estonian Public Broadcasting. The talk was that it should somehow be regulated,” added Raudsaar.

While in 2012, the total number of cases of insurance fraud ascertained
by insurance companies fell by nearly 25%, the amount of
money the fraudsters tried to get grew by over 26%, Estonian
Insurance Companies Union announced.

In 2010 and 2011 the number of ascertained insurance
fraud cases was 330 and 327 respectively.

While in 2011, the monetary volume of the fraud reached
1.88 million euros, last year it grew to 2.38 million euros.
The growth came from addition of a few very large scale
insurance fraud cases – while in 2010 and 2011, the biggest
ascertained fraud cases remained below 100,000 euros, last
year there was an attempt to get nearly 400,000 euros.

The Union's damage prevention manager Erik Ernits
stated that the tendency of growth of sums refers to
organised groups and wilful crimes.

Ernits said that it is positive that all types of
insurance fraud fell last year. The number of cases where
insurance case was staged or wilfully caused fell most. That
concerned mainly staged traffic accidents and thefts.

Five Estonian healthcare workers' organizations announced on Monday that they
are not ready to sign the good will cooperation agreement aimed to guarantee sustainability
of the healthcare system, claiming that it is vague and the social minister doesn’t
want to take responsibility, LETA/Postimees writes.

The cooperation agreement, preparations for which started in October last year
during the doctors and nurses’ strike, was convened by the social ministry and was
chaired by the then social minister Hanno Pevkur. 22 healthcare organizations
were invited behind the negotiations table, representatives of employees, employers,
patients and state institutions.

After five meetings, a nine-page agreement was written up, that lists dozens
of specific tasks with implementation deadlines that should make the system clearer
for patients and healthcare workers.

Doctors Union secretary general Katrin Rehemaa said now that they submitted
a number of proposals together with Healthcare Workers Vocational Union that did
not reach the agreement or the wording of which was changed considerably.

The main criticism of the medical workers who refuse to sign the agreement is
that the document doesn't list, as the aim of increasing healthcare financing, that
it would increase to the 2010 average EU level by 2020 in Estonia.

Social minister Taavi Rõivas said that this would mean that there should
be 1.5 times more money in healthcare than there is now. "This is complicated and
impossible to achieve and as the social minister I cannot sign a financial obligation
that exceeds the budgetary year sum," he said.

Rõivas said that a half of the organisations that compiled the agreement have
said they would sign it. "Irrespective of how many signatures there will be on the
agreement, work will be started on what is written in it," said the minister.

January 28, 2013

In the opinion of Mart Laar, one problem facing Estonia today is lack of clear vision for the future. The ex-PM who is currently in wheel-chair because of a massive stroke that he suffered about a year ago said in an interview to Äripäev that the country seems to be moving without a clear purpose, policy-making is not systematic and this is a cause for crises. Below are abstracts from his interview to Äripäev.

Q: When will you publish your political memoirs?I don’t know. I cannot rule out the possibility that I will never write them. It’s nice when people write books and memoirs of other people make me want to write mine. But at present they are not on the top of my agenda.

Q: Have you read Edgar Savisaar’s new book?No, and I don’t plan to. The name is very promising and I understand that it talks about corruption. I though Savisaar was making a sincere confession, but it seems that he is writing about other people, not about himself. I must admit that this is not very interesting.

Q: How likely you think that Estonia will turn left?Right-wing parties have been on power for so long and this is a risk because in politics it is clear that things change because people would like to see new faces. They would like to try something new, new concepts or trends. But this is a luxury that you can afford in a strong democracy. I don’t know if Estonia would survive such experimenting, life will tell. (…)There is a possibility that when people come to power, they will also come to their senses. This is always a possibility and very welcome. But more often than not, it will not happen. Then it will be difficult, especially if you look at promises that have been made in public. When these promises get to be implemented, the consequences will be dire.

January 27, 2013

TALLINN – Estonian Center Party became the most popular party in
Estonia in January, being supported by 28 percent of voting age
citizens, a poll by TNS Emor, commissioned by the Public
Broadcasting, indicates.

The opposition's Center Party was the
only one that managed to increase its support rating in a month,
by 4 percentage points.

If parliament elections took place tomorrow, 27 percent of
respondents would vote for the other opposition party, Estonian
Social Democratic Party. Their support fell by 1 percentage
point in a month.

The governing Reform Party, which had held the top position
in the party ratings for a long time, being as high as 39
percent in August last year, saw its support fall by 2
percentage points to 20 percent in January. The support to the
junior coalition member, Pro Patria and Res Publica Party (PRU)
also fell by 2 percentage points to 16 percent.

Emor said that the support between coalition parties that had
a combined 36 percent support and opposition parties that had
combined support of 55 percent hasn’t been as big since
elections of 2007.

Among parties not represented in the parliament, the Greens
had the highest support, 5 percent.

TNS Emor polled 8,997 citizens in voting age. Emor's party
support rating includes the responses of people who had a party
preference and thus the answers of people whose response was
"cannot say" were eliminated. The share of people without a
party preference was 38 percent in January.

My name-a Alec Shirkey, long-time reader and first-time official poster. I'm
a devoted
Falcons, Braves and Dawgs fan, an aspiring sports journalist and an opinionated
football enthusiast. You may have read some of my musings over at SB Nation Atlanta,
or perhaps my overly-dramatic reactions on Twitter (@AShirkey). Maybe you haven't,
in which case prepare yourself: it could get bumpy.

Suffice it to say, I'm real excited about joining the writing ranks of The Falcoholic.
Hopefully the hazing isn't too unbearable (looking at you, Dave), though I'll admit
I'm no stranger to the beer funnel.

With introductions out of the way, let's get started with our big Estonian friend
Margus Hunt, whom Mel Kiper has going to the Falcons in his first mock draft of
2013:

YEREVAN - On January 25 the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan paid a working visit to the Republic of Estonia. During the visit political consultations took place between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia and Estonia. During the meeting with Mart Laanemäe the parties discussed a number of bilateral political, economical, cultural, legal and other issues.

The necessity to reinforce bilateral relations has been acknowledged by both parties.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia informed "Armenpress" that the two parties exchanged ideas on a number of issues of mutual interest. Special emphasis was laid on relations between Armenia and the EU and on the Eastern Partnership summit, which will be held in Vilnius in November 2013. Extended discussions took place on regional issues and a row of issues regarding the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

In the frames of the visit discussions were held with the representatives of the Diplomatic School of Estonia and el. Administration Academy regarding the Armenian developments and issues concerning Armenia in the frames of activity of the Eastern Partnership.

The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), based in New York,
has named the 2013 Top 7 Intelligent Communities of the Year
2012, Tallinn has been listed in a ranking of the most
intelligent communities, reports Tallinn.ee, referring to
intelligentcommunity.org.

The following communities, drawn from the Smart21 of
2013, were named to the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2013
based on analysis of their nominations by a team of
independent academic experts:

- Columbus, Ohio, USA: With an economically and
racially diverse population, the city trails the US average
in terms of per capita income, but has America’s highest
concentration of Fortune 1000 companies per capita. Being
the state capital has helped but the success of Columbus has
been forged through collaboration among city government,
academic institutions, businesses and nonprofits.

- Oulu, Finland: The mobile communications
business has been good to Oulu, and the mobile business has
become a threat to its future. The “Nokia risk” as Oulu’s
leaders called it, materialized in the new century as the
company failed to adapt to the rise of the smartphone. Yet
Oulu has created 18,000 new high-tech jobs since 2007,
thanks to a decades-old culture of public-private
collaboration and its many high-quality educational
institutions.

- Stratford, Ontario, Canada: At the turn of the
new century, Stratford had a reputation for being quaint,
cultured and out of the way, home to the Stratford
Shakespeare Festival and a 90-minute drive from Toronto, the
business capital of eastern Canada. Strategic planning,
beginning in 1997, has focused on preserving Stratford’s
enviable quality of life while leveraging ICT to transform
its economy

- Taichung City, Taiwan: When the city and county
of Taichung merged in 2010, it created a huge metropolis
uniting completely different economies: a major seaport city
where 70% of employees work in services, and a rural county
where 50% work in industry and agriculture is a significant
source of income. The city’s leadership, under Mayor
Chih-Chiang (Jason) Hu, was determined to create a whole
much greater than the sum of its parts.

- Tallinn, Estonia: Estonia saw a major boom from
2004 to 2007, as loan capital poured in from Scandinavian
countries. But when the financial crisis came, it hit
Estonia and its principal city of Tallinn very hard. Yet
beneath the froth, Tallinn has put into place the
foundations of ICT-based growth that is generating a strong
comeback.

The loan and leasing portfolio grew by 1.6% in 2012. The growth was unevenly
divided between the months and the fluctuations were caused by a combination of
the financing of very large one-off projects and the writing off from banks' balance
sheets of loans that had been assessed as uncollectible. The total volume of loans
and leasing given to Estonian companies and households fell in December by 16 million
euros to stand at 14.7 billion euros at the end of the year.

Companies took 22% more in loans last year than they did in 2011. The turnover
of long-term corporate loans issued in December was 270 million euros, which was
higher than in any month in the preceding two years. The main impacts on loan turnover
came from large single loans made to the transport, real estate and infrastructure
sectors, some of which were used for refinancing.

Last year, 16% more housing loans were given out than in the previous year. This
led to a slight increase in the housing loan portfolio in the second half of the
year. However, the decline in other loans at the same time was larger than this
increase, which meant that total household loans and leasing fell by around 2% over
the year.

Farmers in Saaremaa say they have their hands full with red deer who are damaging their dairy herd's winter silage.

The deer are punching holes in sealed rolls of silage to try to get at the contents, a trend that becomes worse in colder weather.

Maku farm in Tahula village told the islands' daily Saarte Hääl that the damage started already before Christmas, when 80 bales were damaged.

For a while, the raids lessened during a thaw, but the deer are back and have damaged 300 bales out of 1,800 on that particular farm.

The Environmental Board's hunting specialist Ivar Marlen said that the agency's 2011 count found there were 1,700 red deer on Saaremaa. It says the population should be decreased and has taken steps toward this.

Tallinn - Estonia's new Ambassador to Russia Jüri Luik presented on
Thursday his credentials to Russian President Vladimir
Putin, who promised that Moscow plans to create constructive
relations with Estonia, LETA/Public Broadcasting reports.

"We are ready to create constructive relations with the
Republic of Estonia, based on the principles of good
neighbourliness and consideration of each others' interests.
We are neighbours, we have a lot of similar interests. We
propose to focus on that positive potential," Putin said.

Together with Luik, ambassadors of 18 more countries
presented credentials to Putin.

Estonia's public prosecutor Piret Paukstys has said ten million
dollars of stolen Russian tax money linked to the death of
anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky was moved out of Russia
through Estonia using ten separate companies and Internet transfers, EU
Observer reports on Friday, writes LETA.

Lithuania, Cyprus and Switzerland
are also chasing the stolen cash.

As reported, prosecutors decided to
freeze some accounts in Lithuania-based bank Ukio Bankas that are related to the so called Magnitsky list. It is
suspected that Vladimir Romanov-led
bank was used to launder money pumped from the Russian budget – around 13
million US dollars.

Lithuanian law enforcement
institutions are contributing a globally known investigation launched by
Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who died in mysterious circumstances. A total
of 28 accounts at Ukio Bankas were
frozen.

The amount of money held in these
accounts are no large, not more than 40,000 dollars in each of them.

Every 6th Estonian resident in the age of 15-29 doesn't study or
work, which means that there are around 40,000 of such people,
LETA/Public Broadcasting reports.

"There are long-term jobless
among them, people who work odd jobs unofficially, young mothers with small
children, law violators with dangerous lifestyles and persons with physical or
mental disability and just adventurers," said Tartu University sociology
and social politics institute head Kairi
Kasearu.

The corresponding statistics were
published in a recent study by the European Fund for Improving Living and
Working Conditions. Political studies centre Praxis together with the Tartu
University and Estonian Youth Work Centre compiled a Youth Monitoring political
review that focuses on that problem.

"These young people being left
aside from the education and labour market system is a serious social problem
that has far-reaching consequences. This is clear waste of potential of young
people," said Youth Monitoring project manager Katrin Pihor.

"The result is a person
outside the system who is hard to reach with traditional political
measures," added Kasearu.

January 24, 2013

The 42nd edition of Tartu Maraton will take place in less than a month, on the 17th of February 2013. Statistics of the 22nd of January say that there are overall 7200 people enrolled to the marathon meaning that right now there are already almost 1100 people more enrolled than at the same time last year and registration continues.

Shorter, 31 km distance has capacity to host up to 2000 participants of which 1500 places are already filled.

“If we take a look at the activity of the registration, it is highly likely that places for 31 km distance will be sold out before the day of the race,” says Indrek Kelk, the race director and explains that limitations are set up in order to guarantee safety on the course: “63 km and 31 km distance will be united 3 km after the start of 31 km distance and in order to regulate the intensity on the course, the limitation of 2000 was set.” Kelk also adds that the active registration might be due to the fact that winter came early this year giving all the skiers a good chance to pick up their trainings early.

Today Tartu Maraton has enrolled participants from 28 countries of which 5839 are male and 1361 female.

Early bird discount lasts until 27.01, but registration for both distances is possible until 16.02.2013 17.00.

Organisers are ready to host 10 000 skiers on the marathon day. Open Track 63, 31 and 16 races along with 2nd Tartu Ski Relay and Tervis Pluss 12th Tartu Maraton Ladie’s Race will bring together over 1000 skiers.